I seem to remember being told as a kid not write in books. Certainly, it's not something I've ever done. I recently came across a book discarded by the Edmonton Public Library because it had been heavily, very heavily, marked up by a "reader". Most of the comments were inane, some were profane. All, I reckon, were a waste of pencil lead. I can't know for sure because I just went through the book with a rubber and erased them all, most unread. Now, I guess sometimes comments added by readers are useful; to correct an error for example. And marginalia from a person famous for their interest in the book's subject might even add value to its second hand value. But most of the capitalised scrawl in this book was simply vacuous comment. Whoever was responsible obvious has no friends prepared to listen to his or her thoughts. My overwhelming reaction was "Get a Life". 

I'm not one of those who deplores the wearing of socks with sandals. But, personally, I wouldn't wear socks with "Jesus Boots".  Socks kind of negate the point of sandals, which is surely to give the feet as much air circulation as possible. 'Least, that's what I think. But if people are going to wear socks with sandals, why wear white ones? They must get dirty black and greasy pretty quick as a person trudges the city streets. Can they ever be white again? What are people who wear white socks with sandals trying to say? That they are so rich that they only wear a pair of socks once? Or that they are so wealthy that they can afford to employ someone whose job is to get their socks blindingly white again? What is it with sandals and white socks?

There are groups of people who feel they have been discriminated against when it comes to making a living. They have a good case. But now they have escaped that sad state of affairs they  want what they call positive discrimination. I encountered one such group recently. I won't identify them because they are far from alone in this misguided belief that they are entitled to engineer an unlevel playing field to make up for past years of poor treatment. No-one should be discriminated against on grounds of skin tone, gender or creed. It's a waste of talent. But so is creating an unlevel playing field which favours only certain groups. 

Those of you who keep up to date with  Book Briefing will have noticed that I quite often mention when American spelling is used in what I thought were British books. There's nothing wrong with American spelling, in several instances it makes more sense than the British version. My problem is that most of the visitors to this site are based in the United Kingdom. So, I use British spelling. Overexposure to American spelling can result in me failing to spot when there is an alternative British version I should be using. And then there are the word processing programs which automatically substitute American spellings and the danger of me failing to notice the change if I get too used to the "wrong" version. 

A recent British Royals visit to the Caribbean again raised the questions of reparations for slavery, long ago the basis of the former British colonies' economies. Interesting. The slave owners were compensated when slavery within the British Empire was banned in the 1830s. So, it seems to me that perhaps the fairest thing would be for the descendants of the slave owners to pay reparations to the descendants of the slaves. Meanwhile, what about reparations for the descendants of those forced from their homes by the Highland Clearances?  Or of the Scots held in bondage until the early 1800s and forced to work in the coal fields?